Food not lawns

The Food: Not Lawns Movement may be one of the most perfect storms in addressing how we can simultaneously cut back on destructive practices in lawn care and centralized food production while increasing healthy and productive ones at the hyper-local level.

Between fossil-fuel powered mowers and leaf blowers, heavy water use, application of synthetic — and too often toxic — herbicides and pesticides, lawn care in the United States is at once a multi-billion dollar industry while also being one of the most harmful — and yet easily avoidable — practices impacting our lives.

A kitchen garden used to be a fact of life for most Americans with yard space. And while food gardening is increasing again, it is nowhere near the nearly universal practice from the days of yore.

The upshot is that sustainable home food production at once decreases the uses of harmful chemicals, and prevents destructive runoff into our watersheds all while providing added food security, skill development, resilience, and cost-saving access to the freshest most local food there is — your own.

I’ll have more to say about this perfect storm, along with the statistics that support my argument, in the chapbook of essays.